Adrift
by IseultLaBelle
Summary: A short scene based on the spoilers for tonight's episode. After a panicked phone call, Ange runs to her daughter's rescue. Contains spoilers!


**Adrift**

She's so horribly frantic during the drive over to her daughter's flat that it's a miracle she arrives in one piece, all things considered.

She probably shouldn't have driven. In fact, that's an understatement; she definitely shouldn't have driven. She should have taken Cameron up on his offer to come and pick her up, that would have been the sensible option, and she knows it.

But it would have taken too much time. That's what she had told herself, insisted despite Cameron and Nicky's attempts to persuade her that she was too panicked herself to be driving, that it would be better for everyone if she just waited, sat and waited for Cameron to arrive and collect her that she couldn't wait, couldn't waste time, couldn't just sit there doing nothing.

Perhaps she wouldn't have felt so strongly had she not been so acutely aware of her daughter's rapid, laboured breathing in the background at the other end of the phone, shallow, panicky gasps.

She tries talking to her over the hands-free, at first, during that journey that's only a few minutes, just across Holby West, really, other side of the hospital, but still feels like an utter eternity. She's desperate, heart aching that her baby is in so much distress and she's still ten minutes away, ten minutes _too far _away, that her comfort and reassurance is so badly needed and she isn't there _now_, can't offer it, can't calm her down.

She's still her baby.

She's twenty-nine years old, a brilliant surgeon, beautiful, intelligent, fiercely strong-willed and independent, but in moments like this, she's still her baby.

Chloe will always be her baby.

She hangs up, in the end, after just a few minutes, decides it's better to wait until she reaches her daughter's flat.

It's not helping. It doesn't seem to matter what she says, however many words of gentle reassurance she murmurs. Whatever she tries, however hard she struggles to get through to her, all she can hear at the other end of the phone is her daughter's breathing becoming increasingly worse, no indication that she's listening to her at all, despite Nicky's gentle voice in the background telling her that it's her mum on the phone, that she's safe, trying to get her to focus.

It's not helping either of them, she decides in the end. Chloe's just becoming more and more distressed, as though she doesn't understand that it's her mother's voice on the other end of the phone at all. And when Ange almost sails out across the roundabout, slams the breaks on just in time, startled back into concentration by the sound of the lorry ahead of her on the roundabout's horn, she decides enough is enough, calls out- to Nicky, really, because who knows whether or not her daughter is taking in anything she says- that she's hanging up, that she'll be there in a few minutes.

She should have seen this coming, Ange curses, as she parks outside Chloe's flat.

This is her fault- not all of it, admittedly, she can still see clearly enough to appreciate that. She won't blame herself completely, refuses to give Evan exactly what he wants and hold herself entirely responsible, but at the same time, she can't pretend she doesn't know full well that she could have stopped it all reaching this point.

She should have been there.

Ange casts her mind back over the events of the last week as she fumbles for her handbag, pulls the car keys out the ignition, hands shaking, so overcome with an instinctive urgency to get to her daughter that she seems to have lost all coordination.

She should have done more. Christ, she's been so caught up in herself, with Fletch, with Dom, encouraging Chloe to stand on her own two feet and sort this mess with Evan out for herself via a solicitor partly out of selfishness, because she's so unused to having to balance Chloe's needs with anyone else's and she didn't see it, told herself she was doing the right thing, forcing her daughter to lean on her less just as she urgently needed to lean on her more, all because she can't seem to focus on both of her children at once and she was so wrapped up in her own love life, trivial, pathetic…

She was so caught up in everything else, she didn't see this coming.

She didn't stop this. She could have stopped this, and she didn't, how is Chloe ever going to forgive her?

It's her fault. It's her fault that it's come to this, her fault that her daughter is so distressed now, she caused this…

God, she's shit at this whole parenting thing.

Cameron is waiting for her at the building entrance, stands anxiously in the doorway, fidgets.

"How is she?" The words tumble out before she realises how rude she must sound, skips over the pleasantries entirely, begins taking the stairs two at a time.

"She's… not good," Cameron admits shakily, struggles to keep up with her pace. "It's good you're here. Nicky's with her, we can't calm her down, the police officer wanted to call an ambulance but we managed to hold her off once we explained we're medics, she's slightly tachycardic but I think once you're with her she'll…"

"The police are still here?" Ange asks, taken aback. "You don't mean…"

"No, no, Evan's already been escorted off the premises," Cameron assures her. "But they need a statement from Chloe, and she's in no fit state just yet. It's our word against his, and Nicky and I weren't there when… well, we don't know what happened before we got home," he admits quietly, struggles, hands trembling, to fit his key into the lock on the front door. "But she's… there's nothing to suggest he physically… well… you'll see. She'll be alright," he tells her, though his voice betrays him. "I'm sure she will. I think she just needs her mum."

She's pushing past him before he's even had a chance to get the door fully open, practically runs into the living room, heart pounding, maternal instinct and panic of her own and protectiveness and fury surging through her all at once and she just has to know that her baby is safe, has to cuddle her, calm her down, hear it from her that nothing happened, that this might be a particularly severe panic attack but she isn't hurt, that Evan didn't try to…

She'll kill him. If he's as much as touched her, she'll kill him…

Ange notices Nicky, first. She's crouched on the floor, huddled, facing towards the wall and the sight confuses her for those first few moments as she crosses the room towards her, can't understand why she's sitting on the floor when there's a perfectly good sofa just beside her, where Chloe is, what they've done with her daughter…

It's only once she's right on top of them that she realises Chloe is hidden behind her flatmate, pressed up against the wall, legs pulled up to her chest, head resting on her knees obstructing her face from view and she suddenly looks so tiny, thin, fragile, bird-like, as though the slightest unexpected move could knock her over…

How did she miss it? She should have seen it, should have done something, anything…

"Chloe?" Nicky says softly, looks up, shuffles over, hands rubbing soothing circles on Chloe's arm. "Chloe, look who's here."

Chloe doesn't react.

Her shoulders are shuddering with frantic, panicked breaths, chest rattling with the effort, fingernails digging into her forearms furiously like a stress reaction and she's hyperventilating, Ange realises with a sinking feeling, trapped in her own world of pure panic and who knows if she can get through to her…

She's never seen her quite like this.

"Chloe? Chloe, sweetheart, I'm here. It's Mum. Mummy's here, it's okay. Everything's okay now, I promise. Calm. Calm, Chloe, calm. Breathe for me. Come on, sweetheart, you can do it. I know you can do it, this is going to pass. Okay? This is going to pass, just breathe for me. Take some deep breaths. Come on, Chloe, it's okay. It's okay."

She's talking to her daughter like she's still a small child, babying her and she doesn't care, reaches out slowly, carefully, anxious not to startle her and make it all worse. She's crouched beside her now, Chloe still pressed up against the wall, trembling, lost, Nicky still sat beside her one the one side, Ange on the other, and she's pale, she realises now, pale and withdrawn and it's so difficult to tell when she won't even look at them like this whether she's on the verge of losing consciousness, too far gone, hyperventilated to the point of no return and they're going to have to try to calm her down again when she comes to, or whether there's hope, just the tiniest bit of hope.

"Chloe." Ange tries again, strokes her hair, cups her face, wills her out of her shell. "Come on, sweetheart. He's gone," she murmurs, squeezes her arm, tries tentatively to pull her gently away from the wall and into her arms but she won't move, breathing still rapid, unchanged, sobbing. "He's gone, Chloe, it's over. It's all over, and I know I've let you down, and I am so, so sorry. But that's going to change, okay? I promise. It's over, sweetheart. I'm not going to let him near you again. Ever. That's what mothers are for, right? That's my job, to protect you, and I promise I'm going to be better at it from now on. Breathe, Chloe. Come on, breathe with me. Nice and slowly. In and out, okay? In and out, and then it'll be over. It's okay. It's okay, everything's okay now. Just breathe with me." She slows down her own breathing, hands on Chloe's shoulders, wills her to listen, to respond, let her guide her, and at first, there's nothing, no sign at all that her daughter has heard her, that she can do what she's trying so hard to encourage her to and perhaps they should have called an ambulance after all, should have admitted defeat and rushed her to the ED…

Out of nowhere, Chloe shudders, takes one shakily, solid inhale, one slower, calmer exhale and then all of a sudden, she's collapsing sideways in surrender, relaxes into her mother's arms, head against her chest as though she's relying on the steady rhythm of her heartbeat to pull her back into peacefulness at last, and it happens.

She breathes.

"Mum," Chloe whispers shakily, voice hoarse, hiccupping, but she's breathing. "Mum."

**Just a mini experiment with perspectives, structure, sentence style and show/tell. I'm uploading this very, very quickly because I'm at university and my battery is about to die, but since this is based on the spoilers for tonight's episode, I wanted to get it up before that episode airs!**

**The title comes from a Heather Dale song with the same name- if you've read my Casualty stories you'll know I love Heather Dale. The lyrics as a whole don't quite fit as it's actually the story of a son dreaming of his mother in danger and crying out to rescue her, but I'll leave you with a short section, which kind of does. **

_**"There's none to protect her, no oar and no sail -**_  
_**There's no one to save her but me."**_

**Reviews would make my day- if I owe you a reply or a review I promise I will get on this as soon as I get home tonight and I have battery again! **

**-IseultLaBelle x **


End file.
